This invention generally relates to the manufacture of absorbent articles from absorbent material, and in particular to a splice connecting two portions of absorbent material which is useable in articles.
Personal care absorbent articles such as disposable diapers, training pants, other infant care products, other child care products, feminine napkins, panty liners, interlabial pads, other feminine care products, incontinence articles, and other adult care products are typically manufactured using high-speed processing machines which convert a stabilized web or ribbon of a fibrous absorbent material into an article. Each web is pre-formed and provided to the machine as a wound roll or coil. To prevent interruption of the processing machine a trailing end of each coil is spliced to a leading end of the next coil. The resulting interconnected web has sufficient tensile strength so that it may be provided to the machine and processed without breaking at the splice.
One drawback to conventional splicing techniques is that the splice is not fluid permeable and therefore unusable in an article. In the past, fibrous absorbent materials have been joined by an adhesive or, since they do not have smooth surfaces which readily hold an adhesive, by an adhesive tape. Adhesives and tape are substantially impermeable to fluid. They hinder fluid from being absorbed by the absorbent structure of the article and degrade effectiveness of the article. As a result, it is necessary to cull all spliced regions of the absorbent material, or to cull all articles that may incorporate a portion of a spliced region, in order to remove all adhesive or tape. In practice, as many as seven articles are culled per splice, producing a costly loss in efficiency and waste of material.